[2] Today Durham Wildlife Trust continues to acquire new reserves and run large scale conservation projects.

The Trust is currently involved in projects to protect species such as the great crested newt, the water vole[4] and the barn owl, and played an important part in helping to re-establish otters across the county's river catchments.

[7] Nextdoor Nature aims to create a network of community-led rewilding projects across the nation – all part of a total £22m of Lottery investment to mark the Jubilee and improve the lives of people from disadvantaged areas across the UK.

[10] Durham Wildlife Trust are the programme leaders for this Landscape Partnership, which involves 19 different project streams including river habitat improvements, wetland creation, heritage and archaeology involving local communities around the River Skerne catchment from Trimdon Parish[11] in the north to Darlington in the south and Shildon in the west.

The project undertook habitat work for wildlife conservation and engaged people and communities with their local area and greenspaces across 20 sites spread across Gateshead, Sunderland and South Tyneside.

It provides a home for the Partnership at Rainton Meadows, and is represented on the Partnership's steering group, alongside representatives from Natural England, the Environment Agency, the Forestry Commission, Northumbrian Water, the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group, the North East Biodiversity Forum, and the county, city and borough councils within the area.

Services offered include preliminary ecological appraisals, assessment of biodiversity net gain and protected species surveys.

The site is very important because it supports a range of rare and uncommon flora and fauna, including lesser skullcap, stag's-horn clubmoss and the velvet ant, which has not been recorded anywhere else in the county.